I have also recently left my job at Teavana. It makes me sad, because I really wanted to like the job. I have loved tea since I was very young and I was so excited to get the job. I've worked in retail for years and years, but my numbers never met their company standards. One thing that bothered me the most is that they promoted solely on numbers. Just because someone is a great sales person DOES NOT mean they will be a great manager. It was so frustrated to see all of these people get promoted and then go on power trips.

Most of all, I could never get on board with their sales tactics. I think they are borderline unethical. I'm not comfortable with the line in the training manual that says "People don't know what they want to buy, you have to tell them" (not verbatim). I hated being trained to presume the customer was an idiot. And while I agree many customers need educated, they don't need merchandise crammed down their throat.

I'm glad the issues were not just in my store and appear to be company wide. Teavana will never ever become one of the top companies to work for. They pay poorly, treat their customers like crap, and treat their employees even worse.

CuppaBuddha wrote:I'm not comfortable with the line in the training manual that says "People don't know what they want to buy, you have to tell them" (not verbatim). I hated being trained to presume the customer was an idiot. And while I agree many customers need educated, they don't need merchandise crammed down their throat.

You did a great job in paraphrasing because that is what is written in the manual . I remember when I first read it, I was shocked at how bold and rude that statement was. Teavana takes advantage of most American's naivete when it comes to loose leaf tea, and that's a shame. Teavana could still earn large profits if they treated the product, the customer, and the sales staff with respect. They just care about profits.

Since I left Teavana, even without the nice discount, I have saved so much money in buying my tea elsewhere.

I just wanted to thank everyone for posting about their Teavana experiences. I was THIS CLOSE to purchasing some items off the Teavana website but was (thankfully) compelled to search the company online before making the purchase. I am glad that I avoided buying anything from such an unscrupulous company.

I am, however, new to loose leaf tea and would like some suggestions on where I should purchase good quality, reasonably priced loose leaf tea and some form of tea steeper. Thanks!

Welcome LizzyOur host Adagio is a decent place to start with loose leaf. lots of sampler sets and individual tea samples if you want to try some variety..If you know what type of tea you are leaning towards we can probably make some additional recommendations

If you're looking for a specific kind of tea, there are specialty vendors of course, but if you just want to explore what's out there, Adagio might be a good place to start--they have a lot of variety, and are pretty reasonably priced.

For strainers, I would go to Amazon--they have a lot of all-purpose tea-strainers of various types, including the basket variety I prefer for loose-leaf tea.

Let me first preface their by saying that, although I am a newbie here, I spend all last nigh / this morning reading all 37 pages of this thread. Also, please forgive any spelling mistakes or strange substitutions - I'm on my tablet, as I am currently computer-less.

This is my experience with Teavana.

The first time I went in was last summer before heading off to college - I wanted to try some loose leaf tea. I'd been in the store a few times before, but never bought anything and had never been subjected to the sales pitch. I go in, tell the guy I want to buy some tea. He tells me that 4oz us the smallest amount of tea I can get, and I have to buy the tin as well. He shows me a few different kinds. He almost convinces me to buy a half pound of the genmaicha, until I see the price ring up on the register. I told him I couldn't afford it, and he took it off. I ended up walking ut of there with 4oz of Blackberry Mojito and a tin (about $20. I think).

Wll, a few months pass and I come home over winter break. I don't know of any other tea stores in the area, so I go into Teavana again. This te, I've read a lot about tea and I am not subjected to the pitch. I walk out of there about $100 later, but with 2oz of lots of different teas as well as som elf the was paper tins they had on sale.

Since then I've gone into Teavana and ordered from them several times without complaint. Sure, they're pushy, but they're told to be - and you KNOW they're told to be, so just ignore it. This past time I went in, I said I wanted 2pz of the dragon well and that was all, thanks, and she pours out 2.1 oz, which is fine, since it's my favorite tea, and asks if it's okay.

That was the store in The Natick Mall in MA.

Another time, when I was in th Burlington Mall, also in MA, I wanted to buy some teacups for care packages I was sending to friends. I would have been happy just to browse, but I understand how the salespeople are taught to hound customers, so I didn't mind so much when the girl followed me and showed me what they had. I ordered a cup of tea to drink as I shopped, and the woman standing at the counter rang it up for me. I was less impressed when, after I had made my selections, I go up to the register and the woman who had been standing there, training a new associate, says "I've got this" rather nastily to the girl who had been very helpful to me. I said to her, "Excuse me, but I'd rather be rung up by the associate who helped me," since she'd followed company procedure and I know about tickets and all that, and my total purchase was a out $50 ($20 for cups, $30 for teas I had planned to buy - I always have a list). The woman at the counter (she looked like a manager) just gave me a dirty look and called the other girl over.

I think in the future I'll stay away from Burlington unless I have a reason to go there, and just go to Natick Teavana instead.

There really are so many, much better places to buy tea online. Sure you can't see it and taste it first, but many places will send samples. I love tea deeply, and normally I would be excited about a company, like Teavana, opening up the tea culture more to the USA, but I just can't get behind overpricing mediocre tea. Find a website that ships from China and you will never go back!!!!

My sister went into a Teavana shop to buy a utensil she wasn't able to find elsewhere. Of course she was plied with samples and urged to buy tea. She simply told them she gets all her tea from her sister (moi) and left with her small purchase, unscathed!

At my local Teavana, there's a couple of helpful employees who don't push at all, and didn't follow this "5 no" rule, they just asked if I'd like a tin. However, at my last visit, a girl I had not yet had the pleasure of dealing with was incredibly pushy. I was asking about a few of their black teas, but she kept pushing me to buy their $20 ones. Then I asked about a $6 one, and she kept insisting they were "very low quality." I was getting very frustrated, and she told me I should really go for the $20 one, leaving me on the verge of losing my cool and asking "If that's so low quality, WHY WOULD YOU SELL IT?!" They she suggested me buying 2 ounces of 3 different kinds!

I ended up buying 2 ounces of the $9 one I had originally planned on purchasing, having her repeatedly dump out some when she over-filled to 3 ounces, and insisting that I already had a tin to use (I did.) It is a good black tea, but the hassle I had to go through makes me want to never set foot in there again, which is unfortunate, because one of the employees has always been helpful to me.

Perhaps the newer employees are the pushiest, and the freshest out of training.